


More Than a Vessel

by Howlingdawn



Series: Whumptober 2020 [16]
Category: Psych (TV 2006)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural (TV) Fusion, Gen, Light Angst, Survivor Guilt, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:49:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27112876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Howlingdawn/pseuds/Howlingdawn
Summary: Angels need to possess a human to have a life on Earth. Before the Fall, this was just a simple fact.Now, it's a source of guilt.(Whumptober Day 19 - Survivor's Guilt)
Series: Whumptober 2020 [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949191
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	More Than a Vessel

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be angstier and feature Marlowe too. Then I just ended up monologuing.
> 
> I regret nothing.

Lassiel sat at a rickety picnic table beneath a cloudy night sky, waiting out in the chill while Marlowe slept. On another night, he might’ve gone for a stroll, killed the quiet hours by immersing himself in what Marlowe so loved about living on Earth, or stayed in the motel room to practice his casework, searching for answers while she slept. He still had much to learn about humanity and hunting, after all.

But tonight, he found himself entirely preoccupied by the photograph in his hands.

It was an old thing, worn by constant handling, the fold lines permanently creased into the paper. But he could still see the smiling faces, feel the love it held, remember the man his vessel had been and the family he had loved so much. This had been his favorite memory to spend time in when Lassiel borrowed his body, choosing to dwell amongst their love even when God’s grand plan – a grand plan that amounted to nothing at all in the end – took him far, far away from them.

Until the Fall killed him, the same heat that burned away Lassiel’s wings as he plummeted through the atmosphere making it impossible even for his power to maintain both the angel and the human soul inhabiting the body. By the time he hit the ground, the body was his and his alone.

Once upon a time, it hadn’t bothered him. His vessel had been a good, kind, faithful man, but human lives were brief, barely half a blink in the grand scheme of all existence. Losing one, even a good one, was no great loss.

Until Marlowe. Until Marlowe, and Juliet, and the Vicks, and hell, even Guster and the Spencers. Until they took him in, showing him all the ways humanity could be both irritating beyond all measure, yet more wonderful than even the most idyllic of heavens. For thousands of years, he had thought the other angels were his family, until, in less than a year, this ragtag group of humans had done more for him than thousands of angels ever had. And gradually, where he had once thought angels to be the most superior of species, he had begun to realize that, if any species truly was superior, it was likely humanity. Powerless, short-lived, scrappy, brilliant humanity.

His vessel had never been an acceptable loss. He was a man who deserved to go home, to be with his family, to live his life. To do everything Lassiel’s taking of his body, Lassiel’s devotion to a fruitless cause, had made impossible.

Guilt was never a thing he had felt before the Fall. He was a soldier, and had been for thousands of years – he had taken many lives, borrowed many bodies, and it was all in the name of orders. Nothing else had mattered.

Now, he bowed his head beneath the weight of the guilt of costing a single human his life.

“I’m sorry, Albert,” he murmured, his voice nearly swallowed by the breeze kicking up around him. “I… Well, once I would’ve said it was God’s plan, but now… I don’t know what gave me the right to survive while you were killed. I don’t know what gave me the right to find a family while I took you from yours. I… don’t know much of anything anymore, to be honest. But…”

He looked up at the motel they had checked into for the duration of the case. It was a rundown old thing, cheap and inconspicuous as hunters tended to stick to – saying it was a far cry from the pristine shine of Heaven was an understatement. But Marlowe was in there, and come morning, Juliet would join them. And perhaps hunting down a djinn or two wouldn’t make the world-altering difference he had thought he was making as an order-following angel, but to the town it was terrorizing, it would make the difference of a lifetime.

And maybe that was all that really mattered.

_It has to be._

“I promise I will do everything in my power to make your sacrifice worthwhile. And when this case is over…”

He folded up the photograph with as much care as Albert once had, tucking it back into the safety of his wallet. “I will do what I can to give your family some closure.”


End file.
